PACS:
1. n. (acronym)Picture Archiving and Communications System. A device or group of devices and associated network components designed to store and retrieve medical images.
2. n. (acronym)Pain And Constant Suffering.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Preliminary Status

This morning, I spent an hour demonstrating Merge PACS to the residents and those attendings who were able to, well, attend. I went over some basics of the PACS, as well as a few of the more powerful tools, and everyone seemed to grasp very quickly what I had to offer. In particular, in working with several residents in CT and MRI, I found ALL were using the worklists as I had suggested. Wonderful!!! I was able to show those in the CT reading room the ease with with they could create 3D renderings. We tried this with both thin and thick data, and of course the thins gave the best result.

While watching the workflow, it became apparent that the residents aren't the ones (generally) who mark the studies as "Read", but rather the attending does so after review. I was able to make a button (a macro, really) that mimics the "Click study Read and go to Next" Checkmark, but marks the study as in "Preliminary" status instead. I think this fits the way things are done here. The only downside is that each individual user has to place this on the client under their own login, but that's not too much of a problem.

Things are shaping up!

In the meantime, here are a few more shots of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and environs: